The clutter

I talk so much about clutter. How it is bothering me, how it's making me frustrated and tired and how I'm getting rid of it. However, it seems that no matter how much I get rid of I still have the same problems. Stuff...everywhere! Today I have been putting a box together for Goodwill and a box for the children's consignment shop. It's so sad for me! I hate doing it. I see the toys and I remember how they loved them at one time or how someone gave it to us and it makes me so sad to see it go. The thing that makes me the most sad is when I'm getting rid of a toy that never gets played with...and I feel like it never got played with because I didn't have time to sit down with the little ones and play with them. It breaks my heart.
About a week ago I did some thinking and decided that the real issue of my clutter is not necissarily having too much but that I

1. keep buying more (i LOVE thrifting)
2. don't put things away. Well...no member of this family is good about putting things away and 7 people leaving their stuff out can make for a really big mess.

So I decided to get at the heart of the issue. I am not going to go to any thrift store this month unless I specifically need something. However, as any thrifter knows...if you need something specific it will not be at the thrift store when you look for it LOL. Well...90% of the time.

I have been in houses of thrifters that are just crammed full of junk for house decorating, pillows, etc. My problem is not buying house stuff. I buy children's clothes, children's books and toys! While this has been good for my family's budget, it has not been good for our space. We now have a big library of wonderful, quality children's books that were bought for 25 -50 cents each! I'm talking corduroy, DK eyewitness books, Jesse Bear, the complete Little House set and One Morning in Maine. Not to mention the 100 cute board books that Mareea loves and Thea takes to bed with her!

What a blessing the clothes have been. Quintin's feet grow like weeds! He hardly stays in a size for a month! I have found him 3 pair of asics, new balance and adidas at the thrift store for $3 and $4 each! All his jeans are from there and in very good condition and he has very nice church shirts and church pants also. These clothes will be passed down to ashton and Landon and I will proudly say, "I paid 29 cents for those Tommy Hilfiger pants you're wearing! And you're the third one to wear them!" Each child has a rain coat and rain boots. We never could have afforded special items like that any other way.

And toys...can I give tribute to the toys also? The little people dollhouse from the early 90's that all my children have loved, the fisher price pirate ship and castle that are constantly used for playmobil set ups. They cost me less than a dollar! How can I beat that? Knowing how highly priced toys are new. We have gotten the vintage fisher price farm, parking garage and tudor house all by thrifting. What wonderful sturdy toys for nothing!

But I HAVE to stop. We have enough now. The boys are set on clothes. They will have hand me downs to spare. The girls have plenty of clothes thanks to Sue's boxes of Clara's things. There are enough toys and now they only really play with legos, playmobil and crayons. There's no need for 1,000 plastic things sitting around. And the books...we have so many. Our library is wonderful and there's no reason to keep buying now. If we never went to the library again we could have a great rotation of wonderful books and never get bored.

It's time to let go. It's time to quit thrifting for fun and focus on enjoying each other and what we have. I think I will enjoy everyone more when I'm not constantly picking things up or feeling like the walls are closing in on me due to boxes of things lining the edges of every room!

No thrifting this month...and next month...get to working on picking up!